Fan x Boy is miserable

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I have Problems with Fan x Boy, the newest comic by Saturday AM CEO Frederick L. Jones, illustrated by Frank Simmon(ds?). The protagonist strutting around in a piss-soaked cum jacket, somehow, does not breach the top 6 things that suck. We’re also not going to give too much thought about how it, somehow, misspelled the artist’s name.

pobondy’s nerfectnd!!!

Chapter 1 is not a satisfying entry point to a new series. Things just kinda happen and then it ends and everything hazily drifts into the next chapter. This wishy-washy meandering is acceptable for a comedy/SoL. But for a superhero action series featuring a hostage negotiation, this is nauseatingly unfocused. You’d think with Saturday AM being in business since 2013, they’d know how to deliver a solid opener.

I suspect Jones spent the last 13 years learning how to bloviate instead of learning how to how to pace a story. Or they butchered an otherwise meaty 40-page chapter 1 into increasingly smaller chapters.

Since I am full of so much goddamn benevolence, I gave this series time. And some more time. And even more.

See, Fan x Boy debuted in the New! Saturday PM. This promised to be the monthly reboot of their Saturday PM magazine… which immediately fumbles on that premise since the damn magazine opens with Chapter 7 of their 2015 manga Underground. Because diving in at chapter 7 for a decade-old series is how you want to start off your New Issue 1. Sure. I guess. Alright.

Either way, the big selling point of this magazine’s reboot was it was promised to be monthly… until it wasn’t. We see the apology tour in full force by issue 3: their Letter from the Editor makes an unnecessarily big whoop over something that I am certain only a dozen people noticed.

Apologize harder!! It makes you look professional!!!!

Anyway, about Fan x Boy.

Chapter 1 feels more like “scene 1” — but since this is more of a comic than a manga, lets let the three-act-structure speak for itself. We’re now 3 chapters deep and wow! It still! Sucks! It still monumentally fucking sucks!

Suck 1: Jones is greenlighting another series for himself

Alright, this is a meta problem, but hear me out.

What kinda checks and balances are in place at Saturday AM if Jones can have 4 series running simultaneously? (World of Ghosts, Clock Striker, Yellow Stringer, and now Fan x Boy).

I get it— every OEL manga publishing company starts because a guy wanted to make his manga, he gets a group of friends together, things snowball from there (for this broad and sweeping statement to work, we’re ignoring the likes of Viz Originals— companies who were already robust publishers and felt charitable enough to open an OEL branch).

But c’mon. Four? Having that many plates spinning can’t be good. Either his input on those other 3 amounts to “pushy editor with a big enough ego he granted himself second billing, because honestly, who’s gonna say no to the boss” or —or— the entire operation is burning in the background as he juggles four series at once. Again. Four.

Suck 2: What’s with the title.

I heard Jones on video exclusively pronounce this series title as “Fan Ex Boy.” Since it’s his damn thing, however he pronounces it is probably right. Probably. But hearing “fan ex boy” for a series that’s spelled as “Fan x Boy” gives me that call-and-response itch to adjust my pocket protector and dweeb-glasses while I nasally blurt out “the x is silent.”

Hunter x Hunter. xxxHolic. Marriage x Toxin.

All of these manga series have silent X’s since the X is supposed to be, like, a variable. Ugh. I dunno man. This is dork culture 101. I feel like an asshole for even saying it. Am I being baited? Does Fred want me to make this correction, just so he can spin around and say that the X isn’t silent for this one very special occasion? This is either 4d linguistic chess or he’s such a turbonormie he legitimately and honestly and truthfully and sincerely believes in his heart that you say the X in Hunter x Hunter.

My personal head canon is the variable in Fan x Boy is a plus (fan+boy) and it’s a way to discretely ship the protagonist with his best friend. Kiiiiiinda gay!!!

Suck 3: Homophobia.

I wanna break down the opening scene of Fan x Boy because it appropriates on my culture: Homophobia. Because when it comes to homophobia, it’s something I love giving and receiving in the sloppiest way possible.

The comic opens with a Bostonian coded child clarifying that when he calls our dweebish, comic book reading protagonist ‘queer,’ he doesn’t mean gay! How very progressive and woke of you, Bostonian Child, to share the intricacies of the word “queer” as a pejorative.

The more realistic move would be to have this little prick scream the F slur as he cruises by on his tricycle. No explanation needed.

Guys who casually dish out homophobia only learn this distinction when they take Sociology 101, because that felt less gay than taking Feminism 101 for picking up chicks. At this developmental stage you’re using brute force to establish the hierarchy and pick on someone weaker. Which was the point of the scene. So why do we need it explained that queer =/= gay when we’re demonstrating how protag-kun is such an outsider. God, shut the fuck up. Even Fred’s imaginary schoolyard bullying includes a Teachable Moment.

And just in case you wanted your homophobia to hit a lil harder, we do get An F on page 2.

So let’s summarize it:

• We’re opening with unnecessary homophobia

• The homophobia gets an explanation from the bully

• Only to turn around and go harder with the homophobia

If you’re going to give the audience the psychic damage of homophobia— I want you to do your research. I don’t want to be the one feeling lectured. Which is why I’m saying, dude, just do the Drive By Slur. Its a form of harassment so ubiquitous it’ll be nationally added to drivers ed curriculum by Trump’s third term.

There was a chance to show uniquely homophobic bullying, and ya blew it.

Suck 4: Sexism

This one’s not as bad but I still wanted to point it out.

Sexism (and other forms of discrimination) manifest in Jones’ work through a big hulking dummy punching down at the little guy. We see this most frequently in Jones’ series Clock Striker, which, if renamed with light novel naming conventions, would be This Parade of Men can’t Possibly Believe an Otome Heroine can be an Engineer?!

It’s not impossible that some asshole who looks like George Liquor American would verbally berate the workplace’s lone chick. But it’s a flat, Disney channel binary execution and understanding of discrimination. And it keeps happening in Jones’ series. Only bad men are sexist. Only the bully is homophobic. And to delegate acts of discrimination to flat, one-dimensional Bad Guys fundamentally misunderstands why these attitudes exist and permeate. The otherwise polite man who thinks nothing of his casual sexist comment is far more interesting— and pervasive— than this meathead jamming a finger in a woman’s face.

I’m not asking for much, okay. This is basic character nuance. And if a series is going to make the conscious decision to include these real-world issues, you need to offer your audience a little more depth. Otherwise you’re just setting the stage for low-level misery porn. And Clock Striker is like, 12. Gross.

Suck 5: They Really Care About Comics

Fan Ex Boy protagonist, Max, gets his powers by reading comic books. Basically he can absorb what he read like a Ditto and temporarily borrow the powers. I think. Maybe. By the fourth namedrop I’m suspecting that his real superpower is slobbering the Marvel/DC knob. Because jesus christ this series loves flexing what a tee-hee dork they are because they know Frank Miller.

making a masturbation joke here would be too easy

There’s a lot of debate over what counts as “manga”— but its more from the angle of who can make manga, do you need to be Japanese, does it need to release in Japan. I humbly believe you don’t have to be Japanese to make manga, you just have to feel like you’re not trying hard enough.

Stylistically, manga can look like anything. Storytelling diversity is equally rich. So why does reading Urusei Yatsura feel so monumentally different from reading an Archie comic? Why is My Hero Academia the definitive shonen manga of the 2010’s, despite wearing its Marvel/DC influences proudly on its sleeve?

I can’t give you a clear answer, and neither can anyone else, which is why this debate of “what’s manga” has continued for so long. And I can say that Fan x Boy does not feel like a manga. Art style, tone, paneling, story, all of it gets a 0/10 on the “manga” scale for me. Feel free to debate me on my scoring, because I know I will win.

So to really rub it in that they’re drifting away from the conventions of manga, Fan x Boy is going to constantly shout out American comics. And like, sure, fine. Make your capeshit. But you can’t cry too hard when someone gives a stink eye and questions if this counts as a “manga”.

Suck 6: Two cops

The kōban two-cop trope is more entry-level than the phonology of Hunter x Hunter, so I’ll spare you the explanation. Which is why I felt such a… sadness seeing two very opposite cops in Fan x Boy and knowing there was zero chance they’d be shipped (they’re father/son, and I know Saturday AM isn’t that freaky).

This is such a no-brainer bit of fujoshi fanservice to organically work into your tough-guy cop story. And you monumentally fumbled it.

I’m also not sure what’s going on with the second panel. Why’s the son suddenly looking so dejected? What in the text wall made him react like this? The speech bubble is a runoff continuation from the first panel, but in the second panel we’re seeing Big Cop with a huge grin. So, uh, what did he say to change his mood? And junior’s? How in the fuck do you put something so incomprehensible on a page and send it to print?

Suck 7: Piss Soaked Cum Jacket.

still looks like cum even after heavy jpeg compression. Tragic.

Look. I’m not trying to be mean. Really. But that jacket is a problem. So lets get our chuckles outta the way because yellow = pee and the rain droplets on the Fanxboy color art is rendered like a heavy splooge. Because there’s a way bigger problem with Max’s jacket.

In chapter 1, Max’s Cop Friend has the realization that maybe Max is involved with a hostage situation. Okay.

But then in chapter 2, we also get this scene:

C’mon man. Can you at least pretend to pay attention to your own comic? This sucks.